S.J.'s goal is smooth justice

Wednesday

Sep 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday continued to plot the course of the changing local criminal justice system, including voting to seek $40 million in state funds to replace the county's aging, barracks-style Honor Farm with medium-security jail space.

Zachary K. Johnson

STOCKTON - The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday continued to plot the course of the changing local criminal justice system, including voting to seek $40 million in state funds to replace the county's aging, barracks-style Honor Farm with medium-security jail space.

With a 4-0 vote, the board also gave its official approval to a plan already in the works to build a "community corrections center," a residential facility where inmates leaving the jail would have increased access to the kinds of programs designed to smooth their transition to the outside world and help prevent them from committing crimes.

The vote comes three months after a divided board voted to scuttle plans to expand the San Joaquin County Jail, which regularly releases inmates under a court order to prevent overcrowding. The county had money from the state to build the larger jail, but officials balked at the annual cost of operating a larger system and turned down the money.

"I'm glad to see we're moving forward," Chairman Ken Vogel said. "I think this is a good alternative. I think this will serve the county well."

Pressure on the jail to make room has increased in recent years with the advent of "realignment," an effort to relieve overcrowding in the state prison system by sentencing lower-level offenders to county jails instead of state prisons, putting certain parolees under county supervision and sending parole violators to county jails.

But realignment has also brought money to supervise lower-risk inmates outside of jails and create programs intended to keep former inmates out of jail. It has brought together officials from different branches of local law enforcement and other organizations to come up with ways to adapt to the new reality.

That partnership has been developing a new method to release inmates awaiting trial after they have been screened and determined to be a low risk.

Supervisors also heard an update Tuesday on the development of the pre-trial assessment tool.

The three elements - pre-trial screening, the new facility at the Honor Farm and the community corrections center - all have in common the ability to affect the need for jail space in the county, officials said.

"We're looking at ways to do things more effectively," County Administrator Monica Nino said. "Folks that need to be incarcerated will be incarcerated."

Earlier this year, the board approved the spending of realignment funds to pay for probation officers to screen pre-trial inmates for possible release.

Tuesday's vote directs staff to evaluate the feasibility of building a 165-bed community corrections center that would focus on re-entry during the final 30 to 90 days of a jail inmate's sentence. Programs at the center could include job training, medical care or programs to help returning inmates cope with mental health issues or treat drug addiction. The cost is not known, but money from realignment could help to build and staff the facility, according to the county.

And the vote directs staff to develop a proposal to net $40 million from the state toward an estimated $47.7 million project to replace the 60-year-old Honor Farm with higher-security beds on adjacent land. The completed proposal will later come to the board for approval before the Oct. 24 to submit it to the state.

The Honor Farm, on average, houses 405 inmates, which is below the number of beds there because of a staffing shortfall and the security classifications of inmates that can be incarcerated there, according to the county. The project lowers the number of beds at the Honor Farm from 571 beds to 508 beds, but the new facility would have the flexibility to house inmates of different classifications, according to the county. "The replacement beds are more versatile in handling various types of inmate classifications," Senior Deputy County Administrator Rod Kawano said.

Effectively, it would allow the farm to handle about 100 more inmates, officials said. Early estimates are that this could increase operations costs by about $1 million annually.

"We're not increasing our bed space," Sheriff Steve Moore said. "This is straight replacement, taking us out of the late '40s dorm style to a higher-security level that will allow us to better utilize the space that we have, better utilize the staff that we have and provide the much-needed programs that are required for (realignment)."